


(you make me) blue

by orphan_account



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: M/M, Repost of old fic, tw brooke is sad and destructive, tw implied death, tw implied eating disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23277919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: god this bed is too big for one man and his cats.
Relationships: Brooke Lynn Hytes/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, branjie - Relationship
Kudos: 12





	(you make me) blue

**Author's Note:**

> This may make you cry, you have been warned. Another one I dug out of the archives (excuse the pun).  
> Leave me a like if you enjoyed xx

If this is what grief feels like, then I wish they had taken me too. If I have to spend one more minute in this fucking bathroom throwing up the thorns and petals that seem to have woven their way through my ribcage since you have been gone, then I do not wish to do this any longer.

For there is no magic in the mundane without your constant childlike excitement at fluffy dogs in the city or extra pumps of vanilla syrup in your already tooth-achingly sweet coffee order. Trips to the grocery store don’t feel like going on a date anymore and  _ god  _ this bed is too big for one man and his cats.

Because that’s all I am, now. I’m not a drag husband, showering you in dollar bills if we were ever lucky enough to wind up in the same city on the same night. I’m not even just your husband, with all the wigs and sequins removed. I can’t believe how middle-aged I sound but rather than the international stardom and fame I used to imagine for us both, I dream of early nights; sweatpants and lazy kisses on the couch, hands touching and caressing. I am just a man with his cats, and that is going to be the death of me.

I had your favourite song on repeat for the first week. Now I cannot listen to it without blood and acid and perhaps my stomach lining crawling up my throat. I don’t eat much anymore, because everything reminds me of you. I still don’t understand how I can find pieces of you in oranges and cookies and croissants but that’s just what you did. You wormed your way into my heart and my brain and my life and my soul and damn it Vanessa, if it doesn’t burn now. If you could see me know I know you would’ve sat me down (and sat on top of me) and intently watch me as I ate. You would never admit it but I know you used to worry about how when the world gets too much for me to handle, the empty pain of hunger settling low in my stomach grounds me like a fucking paperweight. I would never admit it, but I know that you were right. Just another habit I picked up from being surrounded by ballerinas I suppose. That and the cigarettes I insist on burning my lungs with every two hours or so. You hated that too but there are just some things I cannot rid myself of, despite the unsettling haze of betrayal clouding my vision whenever I take a drag. Nina tells me I’m slowly killing myself. I tell her through a shallow exhale that that’s my intention.

Nina calls every night at seven sharp, and I do not always answer. If I do, I tend to cry, sob like the heavens have opened and every flower in Toronto needs watering, and she talks and hums me through it like it’s what she was put on the earth to do. I cling to her words like you used to cling to me at three am, but darling, she could never replace you. We never talk about you and I think that’s for the best. She talks about the weather and her one-woman show in Europe and I wonder what it must be like to think about something that’s not related to  _ you _ . She bids me sweet dreams and a goodnight; we both know it is useless, for she is intelligent and emotional and knows the next day I have a good night will be the day you are back in my arms. I pray to whoever is keeping watch of you that that day is not too far away.

I have never believed in the whole ‘when it’s your time to go’ debacle, because I don’t believe five year old girls with long blonde curls and gappy smiles deserve to be taken back gasping for breath, single parents falling fate to cancer knowing that when they go, their children will be put into foster care. My views have been further reinforced with you. Judging by the childhood stories you used to tell me, you lost at least six of your nine lives by swinging in trees and trying to breakdance on the concrete outside. But you stayed true to the promise you swore with the nurse when you were fifteen, choosing to practice your new numbers on carpet rather than wood flooring, and you never climbed up a tree since. If it was your time to go then there must have be something pretty damn amazing waiting for you because I don’t think I could have given you anything more here. I’m sorry if it wasn’t enough. I wish they would’ve had taken me instead.

I have not put my pointe shoes on for sixteen weeks. You cried the very first time you watched me perform ‘The Red Shoes’ and I believe there is still a mascara stain on the leotard I was wearing. I do not dare check. Dancing is all emotion and lord knows I don’t need any more of that right now. Maybe in a week or twelve I will lace them around my ankles and see if I am still able to balance on my toes or if they will crumple also. You cried the second, third, and fourth time I performed ‘The Red Shoes’. I wonder if I was to dance it right now, if I would hear your tears again.

I think about our first (and only) fight a lot. When I walked out of our front door with tears streaming down my face and you collapsed onto the kitchen floor in a similar state, only for me to come back ten minutes later because I didn’t know where else to go. You were my first, my last, my one and my only. Though the car and the world was cruel enough to rip you from me, I know that when I see you again, it’ll be like we were never apart.

_ Because after all that we’ve been through, I know we’re cool. _


End file.
